Her Present

He'd just started to take off his parka in the waiting room when she came out from her inner office dressed in a heavy coat, a scarf around her throat.

She smiled the smile she always smiles - the "psychiatrist to patient smile." She spoke to him in her friendly, professional therapist voice: bright, warm, hopeful. "Keep your parka on. Did you do as I asked?"

"I didn't have to. Danica told me last Friday that Ruben was flying her up to Seattle on Saturday and they were going to spend the week there and in Vancouver. I took her to the airport Saturday morning. She won't be back until next Sunday night."

Her smile increased, she moved closer to him, got into his personal space and spoke low so that only he could hear.

She sounded enthusiastic. "Oh! Fantastic! It's more than I could have hoped for!" And then she caressed his face with her fingertips and open palm. The caress lingered just for a second or two but to him it suddenly felt like time had stopped.

Something was radically different. He took note. Something had changed. And for the moment, he liked it.

Aside from very occasional, very reserved hugs on days when sessions went well or were tough, she had never touched him in any other way. Now her palm and fingertips on his naked face...a strongly sensual thrill shuddered through his face, picked up speed in his chest and struck like a lightning bolt through his belly.

It was the same thrill he got occasionally - only a 100 times stronger - when talking to her about his perception of their doctor/patient relationship; when considering her as his Mistress, in the context of Dominance/submission.

In his bubble of stopped time he remembered their first session five years ago.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

First Therapy Session

He felt so close to giving into the Abyss, that as Nietzsche said, would stare back if one stared long enough into it. He was weary, tired of struggling with the depression that covered him like a heavy blanket, smothering him.

At the end of the session, accurately judging his immediate despair and depression, she asked, "Will you tell me, call me, text me, whatever, if you feel unsafe. You know, if you feel like harming yourself or others?"

Without hesitation he answered, "No. But," he said, averting his eyes from her, feeling his face flush hot with blood, "I will tell you if you consent to be my Mistress."

There then followed a hurried, worried, confusing discussion:

"Mistress? You mean sexually? Professional ethics notwithstanding, we both have spouses!"

"No. I mean that I will submit to you if I can consider our relationship as you being my Dominant and I am your submissive. And really, in the final analysis, you are dominant to me, to all your patients. You have the power, should you decide to be unethical and want to, to fuck with my head, with your other patients' heads. It can be...no, it is a very intimate relationship between Dominant and submissive.

"But, right now, you're a simply a well paid mental whore...

She cut him off. Her eyebrows shot up. She looked and felt somewhere between shocked and insulted. Grossly insulted.

"...EXCUSE ME, Mr. Winslow?! Did you just call me a whore?!"

"No..."

"...That's funny because I distinctly heard 'well paid mental whore,' immediately preceded by 'you are!'

"I can have you admitted to the hospital for tonight for your own safety and find you another psychiatrist..."

"...No, wait. Please. Let me explain. What do prostitutes do?" He waited.

Slowly she said, "They have intercourse with strangers for money?" He smiled slightly when she used the word 'intercourse.' It was a perfect set up.

"And, when I, a total stranger, who by your professional ethics you are forbidden to ever have a 'normal' relationship with, pay you to hear my problems for 50 minutes. Well, in some quarters that is called 'social intercourse.' Just the act of talking between two or more people, forget about the hooker aspect, is 'social intercourse.' So. What does that make you?"

He reminded her of the succinct context of his thinking, as she sat across from him, speechless and her eyes defocused.

"Strangers. Us. We talk. We have social intercourse. I put my copay in cash on this little end table by where I sit...just like putting money on a pro's dresser. Pros never touch the cash until after the john leaves.

"It's 'legal cover' for them - the cops can't say any money changed hands if the money's just laying out.

"Anyway, more importantly, I think it's another layer of emotional protection that separates them from their john. Contrary to the movie "Pretty Woman," professionals don't have normal relations with their customers." He hesitated. "You do pick up my cash after I leave, don't you?"

She blinked. He could see the realization of what he was implying slowly move from her eyes then across her face. "Oh...my...God," she said slowly, quietly. Then louder, with feeling, something close to anguish edging her voice, "Oh. Oh! Dear sweet God! I never..."

He wanted to shock her but not hurt her. He thought she was nice, nice enough to trust. He cut in on her to spare her from analyzing the whole thing.

"...Look!" he raised his voice and got her attention.

"While I understand your ethics, I had a nasty experience with a hooker once, the summer after my first year in college, and since then, unless they might be a $5000 a night Victoria's Secret super model type - as if, only in my dreams - I don't care for hookers, for the pros.

"But, and I know this sounds crazy, if I can think of you as my dominant and me as your submissive, which you know, you really are in the therapeutic relationship - even if no one is willing to face fact - I can sort of fool myself into thinking that we have a semi-normal societal relationship. So..."

Very slowly. Again, he could see her trying to process the situation. "Ok... I'm... your...Mistress."

"Then," he said without any hesitation, "I will do whatever you tell me to do. I will get a hold of you if I feel things are about to go sideways. And if you tell me to not, you know, kill myself, to get to the hospital, I will obey without any argument."

It struck her as so bizarre and it was still very slippery for her to get her mind around this concept of Dominance and submission but, slowly, staring at him, she said, "Well... Alright then."

That was five years ago.

Two years ago he was talking about a sexual issue, specifically: though he believed himself to be a heterosexual dominant, he had this growing impulse to be submissive. In that session he asked her if she was still his Mistress as she had agreed to in their first session.

He didn't give her time to respond. Instead, he suddenly got quite emotional. His voice broke and haltingly he said, "You know, aside from God, you know my every secret. You know things about me that my wife doesn't even know. And...you're the only person on the planet I would voluntarily submit to," he stopped. "Just to be clear, by 'submit' I mean you're the only person who I would do anything you told me to do without question. Anything I was told to do."

The professional therapist smile disappeared. He interpreted her new look as one of benevolent power.

Very quietly, in a voice that was rather cold, dispassionate and suffused with power, she responded simply, "I know."

It was in his sincerity, in that moment, that he first experienced the funny but pleasant thrill in his belly. He knew what he said to her was actually true; real, totally and completely honest. Perhaps the most honest he had ever been, with himself or his wife, possibly in his entire life.

Her look, the dispassionate voice and the power in it told him she truly knew her role and had accepted it. Beyond that he didn't know what to make of the what had just happened between them.

She acknowledged her power, he his submission in that session.

Several weeks after that session he was in the middle of a hypomanic crisis.

Desperate for sexual contact he responded to an ad on Craigslist for anonymous sex with a man at a hotel near the airport. It was nearing 3AM. Within sight of the hotel he texted her. He was frightened out of his mind and yet he felt so completely possessed; totally compelled.

He wanted to be used. Barebacked. No safe sex! To Hell with safe sex! All he could think of was oblivion. With a man. He'd never been with a man and in his current mental state it was all he could think of: being with a man.

Shortly his phone rang.

"Are you safe?" Her tone was compassionate but blunt.

"Ye-yes. Yes, I'm safe. But...," he started to protest.

She cut him off. "...Where are you now?"

When he didn't immediately answer she coldly demanded, "Answer me. Now."

"Um, at the Airport Marriott."

"Get home right NOW. Call me when you get there and if I haven't heard from you in 30 minutes I'm calling the police. Do you understand?"

"Yes, ma'am."

Over the last two years they discussed his intense sexual impulses which expressed themselves during his periods of hypomania.

He was surprised by the ephiphany he had: that he suddenly wanted to be with a man and to be used by him like a slave.

Very surprised by his admission about his desire to be submissive with a man, she smiled knowingly and shook her head, "No. Scott, I've always considered you to be bisexual. The desire to submit, that is surprising."

They discussed some of his theories interweaving lifestyle BDSM with true Christianity. Polyamory came up fairly often as he had let his wife of 20 plus years find a lover and the three of them formed a poly V.

But they discussed these things only slightly more than current events, his many physical ailments and politics. And of course his continually fluctuating mental state between dark depression and the feelings that come with hypomania. After three years she had diagnosed him as having a milder form of bipolar disorder.

Mental whore was never mentioned again and the whole Mistress/submissive thing never really came up again.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

"Uh, hey...are you in there?" she asked as she snapped her fingers in front of his face.

"Huh? Oh, yeah. Sorry," he said though he still seemed distant.

"How are you feeling today?" She asked with concern. She held his face in her hands, by her fingertips, stared into his eyes - while another sensual thrill jolted through him.

"Tell me," she asked quietly, sincere concern filling her voice. "How are you feeling today?"

He smiled lamely in her loose grip, "Really?"

"No, I want you to lie to me, bitch. Yes, really." She had never spoken to him like that before.

He looked down, lightly pulling his naked facial skin slowly through her fingertip grasp and mumbled, "I'm feeling very vulnerable. Uh, I...well...I'm feeling very afraid. I don't know why. With Danica gone for the week, I'm already feeling alone, really alone."

She touched him again, this time with thumb and index finger on his bearded chin, and raised his face up to where she could see his eyes.

Another thrill rippled through him like rolling breakers on a beach; he almost closed his eyes to concentrate on the sensation.

"You're feeling down but I think you've kicked over into your hypomania. How long were you online last night?"

He refused to meet her eyes, "Just long enough to check my email."

"Oh, liar, liar, thy trousers doth combust! How long? You said you'd do whatever I told you to do. I want an honest answer. Now."

"Till about 7 this morning."

"And what were we surfing?"

Looking down at the floor again, "Uh, you know, tumblr, rough sex, gay men making out and fucking, sucking each other off..."

"How many times did you come?"

His face reddened and he looked up and around the waiting room, diligently avoiding her piercing gaze. "Well, you know, when I could get it up enough...I think maybe five times. I don't know...after 3 AM it was all sort of a blur. I think I even hot chatted with a married bisexual man for I don't know how long. I spun him a violent fantasy of him using Danica as he pleased and he spun one of him using me. We both got off. He was very dark. I loved it."

"And did you do as I told you when you masturbated with a man? Did you lick your cum off your fingers?"

His face got redder. He hesitated, scuffed his feet on the carpet. Finally, barely audibly, "Yes."

"Yes, what?" She quietly demanded.

"Yes, Mistress."

She lifted his face up to her gaze again. Looked him in the eyes for what seemed like an eternity to him then she smiled broadly, not so innocently and quite pleased,

"Good. Very good. We are going to do just fine today. Come on."

She took him by the hand and led him out of the office, out of the building and to her Range Rover in the far back of the parking lot.

The touch of her skin to his, their fingers interweaved, the grip of her hand on his: it was pure bliss, whatever was happening.

They got in. "Not a word until we get to where we're going - our coffee shop."

Arriving at a coffee shop where they would occasionally have their sessions, she unbuckled and turned to him. The first thing she did was take his face in her gentle grip and stare into his eyes again, very clinically. Unblinking, he stared back.

Then she caressed his face. He closed his eyes to the pleasure this time.

"Scott, do you remember in The Matrix when Morpheus told Neo about the Matrix and then offered him the red pill or the blue? One would make him forget. One would allow him to see what the Matrix was and start a new life?"

He suddenly felt mentally sluggish and not himself - what psychiatry calls a "dissociative state." He knew something was radically different, likely radically wrong. It was almost like the panicked feeling he got the closer he got to the Airport Marriott that night.

"Yes. Mistress."

"Well, I am offering you something like it. If you accept my proposition, you will go inside and meet a man who you will spend the week with. If you don't want to disrupt your life to the extent of what I propose then I'll drive you back to your car..."

He interrupted, feeling a sudden burst of alertness, reality reimposing itself. "Doctor, ...What's going on?"

"Do you remember how many times you have either hinted or outright ask me if I could fix you up with one of my gay patients so you could lose your virginity with a man?"

When he didn't answer she continued.

"More times than I can count. And you remember all the talks we had about dominance and submission? Well, something in my life changed a few weeks ago.

"My husband left me. He's moved out of the house and our lawyers are working on a divorce settlement. He left me because he caught me mid-orgasm with Dr. Yvette Belizaire, in our bed.

"He's jealous and on top of me being unfaithful to him he was absolutely freaked out that I was in bed with a woman. With a woman almost half my age. With a woman who was pleasing me sexually. And quite well too.

"Long story short, Dr. Belizaire has moved in with me. She's submissive to me. She's my lover and hopefully soon will be my wife. What I am offering you, since your depressions have been getting more severe, is you become our slave. Our sex slave. You'll be submissive to both of us. And both of us are going to explore what you've brought up before: what it feels like to actually own, control and use another human being for our pleasure, as if they were nothing more than an animal or object."

He was stunned. Speechless. This was insane! He didn't know whether he should be happy or afraid.

"But...you can't," he stuttered. "This... is... well... insane..."

"I know what it is, Scott. If you're really afraid of me now, that's too bad. But I know what's going on. Don't worry."

"Well, what about Danica? What about my life?"

"I contacted Ruben last week. I just ask him, point blank, after introducing myself as your psychiatrist, if he would consider selling her to me.

"He said yes! So...I am going to get your lovely wife, probably next week and turn her out. But first Yvette and Ruben and I are going to help her get both of your affairs in order and then you'll both vanish."

His mind spun. This wasn't right but the whole thing, in his current state of mind, appealed to him. After telling him this bizarre tail, so calmly and so cooly, she just sat and watched him. After a few slow and awkward minutes of silence between them he slowly and quietly asked, "Who's in the coffee shop?"

"His name is Dr. Devon Atherton. He started his medical career as a urologist then switched to anesthesia. He is brilliant and I think you'll find him depraved beyond your wildest dreams. He's my present to you. He's going to take your virgin ass and mouth and use you like you keep telling me you want.

"He knows all about your meds and your ED and your whole complicated medical history. He knows my plans for you. He's my present to you, to start your new life as a slave.

"He'll give you one safe word. If you use it, he stops everything immediately and brings you to me. Otherwise, he is going to debauch you like you have not dreamed."

"Really? This isn't some complicated joke because...well, really? This is just nuts!"

"Yes, really. I don't know that you can keep on struggling with your bipolar disorder; your depressions are getting worse and coming more often. It's only a matter until you attempt suicide. So, I'm taking responsibility for your life. And for Danica's life, at least for a while - I may sell her to someone. I haven't decided."

"Look!" he almost shouted. "Jesus Christ! You haven't decided? About what you will do with Danica? "

"That's right, Scott." Her voice was suddenly very cold, very dispassionate again. "She'll be a slave. An animal. A sexual an-i-mal. To be used for my pleasure and Yvette's or maybe I will sell her and they'll use her." She paused then added with a nasty tone in her voice, "Slaves are made to be used and sold."

He couldn't believe what he just heard. His mind was reeling.

"You talk about her like she is some sort of meat!"

"Well," she grasp his chin again to make sure she had his undivided attention, "she will be. Like you. That's what you've wanted all this time, isn't it?"

For a moment he didn't know what to say. She looked so...different. She was taking what she wanted and he suddenly had an eerie feeling about what life would be like with Dr. Claire and Dr. Belizaire as Mistresses. No love. Just use. Until he supposed he was no longer useful.

FInally he found his voice and tried to sound...reasonable. "Ah...We both know this is beyond unethical and very illegal," He was breathing rapidly, on the verge of hyperventilating.

His eyes were wide. Panic was returning. Mentally he was somewhere between complete dissociation and acute alertness. It was such a bizarre feeling. It was as if he had won the lottery but... He just couldn't process it all.

"Does that matter to you? I mean, has the ethics and the legality ever mattered to you? You've been the one asking for this."

He blinked.

"No, I suppose it doesn't matter. I... I...," he was teetering between excitement that he was going to get to live out a fantasy, a mixture of his depression and the hypersexual impulse he had when he mentally swung to hypomania and - terror, on the brink of blind panic. That his fantasy was going to be lived out and ruin not only his therapist's career and life but his life and his wife's life. Maybe this insanity was going to ruin everyone it touched.